REVIEWS AMERICAN REPRINTS. 151 



Yet we cannot but rejoice that it was so decided. It was worthy of, 

 Britain, and honorable to the Province. Let us hope that such an 

 example of the impartial and self-denying award of justice, in the face 

 of such notorious wrongs as might well have tempted to an opposite 

 course, will not be lost on our neighbors ; and that they too may 

 perceive that not only the honor, but even the true interests of a great 

 nation may be ultimately promoted by a disinterested course of justice, 

 rather than by a systematic procedure which must, justify itself, ac- 

 cording to any conceivable law of nations, by an appeal to precedents 

 set by the Barbary Corsair, or the West Indian Buccaneer. 



There is one lesson, however, which the above phaze of Canadian 

 copyright might teach the British publisher. If the sale which a 

 popular work can now command in Canada is so great that two differ- 

 ent publishers could see their interests compatible with the issue of an 

 edition of Mrs. Stowe's "Dred," why should not the British publisher 

 forestal the American piratical reprinter, by means of cheap Colonial 

 editions. If the American publisher can make a profit among us on 

 the works of Layard, Tennyson, Hugh Miller, Thackeray, Livingstone, 

 and other favorite authors, the British publisher may do the same, by the 

 simultaneous issue of English and Colonial editions. Why should not 

 Macaulay be read in every corner of the empire in an English edition ; 

 and Dickens' scenes of home-life come to us with the native imprint ; 

 and Tennyson open on us, in all his patriotic fervor of inspiration, on 

 leaves that have been "composed" from his own MSS. and corrected 

 by his own pen. If the English publisher will not so supply us, he 

 cannot complain if we object to his playing the dog in the manger, 

 and interfering with others who will. The New York reprints of the 

 British Quarterlies bear on their wrappers the names of agents in Can- 

 ada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Barbadoes ; and we believe 

 they now find their way to New Zealand, Australia, and the Cape. 

 Certain it is that the American publisher, by escaping all payment to 

 the author, is able to undersell the British publisher in every Colony 

 of the empire. The British publisher must, therefore, so far learn to 

 ignore the author, in calculating the cost of his work. The type is 

 standing. Why not use it for the cheaper Colonial edition ? The 

 copyright has been acquired ; wherefore not employ it as if it were 

 the printed copy from which the American publisher takes his surrep- 

 titious reprint ? Unquestionably for works of really popular interest, 

 the sale throughout the British Colonies would prove abundantly re- 

 munerative ; and even should the author enjoy no direct share of these 

 profits, his interests are not so entirely dissociated from those of his 



